Watching a film at Montreal's Fantasia International Film Festival might be a little different from the typical theatre experience. .

The 26th edition of Fantasia, which bills itself as North America's largest genre film festival, wrapped up on Wednesday.

Belgian horror film Megalomaniac won the Cheval Noir as the festival's top feature, and South Korean director July Jung won the best director prize for her closing film Next Sohee, a drama about a high school student and a mysterious death.

Jung's film also played at the Cannes Film Festival, where it received a seven-minute standing ovation. .

"I thought that it would not be enough to just present this incident as an investigative program or documentary," she said. "I felt that the victim … can be alive through the story, through the film.

"Even though I didn't make my film thinking that I should make this film with this kind of genre or not, I think that audiences can consider my film as a kind of horror film because it deals with very desperate and miserable and difficult situations," Jung said. .

Aristomenis Tsirbas grew up in Montreal attending Fantasia, and this week he got to see his own film make its world premiere at the festival: the youthful science-fiction adventure Timescape.

Janisse said she feels like there's been a wider shift in the acceptance and recognition of genre film in North America.

There have always been fans of horror and other genres across North America, she said, but it took a long time for press, sales agents, studios, industry buyers and others to "catch on to how broad it really could be.".

However, festival programmer Cayer said he feels the distinction between genre and other festivals is more difficult to understand today than it would have been 25 years ago. .

"Of course, festivals show all genres, but then genre festivals' missions became kind of to showcase the weird and the eccentric … [those] that are maybe a little bit underappreciated or looked down upon," he said. .

One of the festival's short programmes, curated by DJ XL5, featured four entries on the subject, including Anette, from Montreal's Joe Lebreux.